The unfortunate answer is that it knows through long forgotten experience… Anything a toddler sees goes in the mouth.
I’m pretty sure it’s my brain extrapolating from that baby experience and combining it with finger sensations. I didn’t have the opportunity to lick a basketball or (US) football but my tongue can surmise the difference in the bumps because my fingers know.
Suuuuure, buddy.
This is exactly what a basketball-licker would say…
Yeah weirdly (or maybe not) when we get down to it too, every sense is a sense of touch. Your ears touch the vibrations in the air, your nose touches the particles in the air, your eyes feel the touch of the light that hits them, skin is self explanatory, and then your tongue, which is touching on a very miniscule level while checking for all the chemicals and seeing if your nose is confirming that the touch is similar to the particles
Disagree on eyes. Light is EM radiation, not a mechanical wave like sound. Your retina isn’t ‘touching’ anything but the vitreous.
Though isn’t it a stream of photons that hit the photoreceptors? So not touch in the mechanical sense, but things are still “touching” in the colliquial sense, like a very minute and specialized version of smell
Unfortunate? That’s an important part of learning as a toddler.
Sucking on couches & table legs & footballs. Toddlers have a lot going on at school.
Some toddlers have helicopter parents who never let them put anything in their mouth. Will they be stunted in their growth and development and sensory skills?
I think you might be onto something.
I have no idea how dick would feel on my tongue, because I’ve never had one on my tongue.
now that was a disturbing mental jump if I ever saw one
Interesting. Yes.
If you feel this as a loss, I’m sure that if you let this be known widely enough in your friend group, someone will offer to help you out with the missing sensory data.
And if not, there’s definitely an app for that. Just put that on your profile.
(your username is kinda epic)
Thank you. Yours is great too. Have a fantastic week.
You’ve never had dick on your tongue because you had helicopter parents who made sure you didn’t put anything in your mouth that isn’t food?
no, I never had dick on my tongue because I grew up in a conservative household.
Seems likely to me
Oh, these kids will make their experiences whatsoever. Even helicopter parents need to do stuff from time to time and kids somehow KNOW if they are not watched, ever for a second. It might take longer to make all the experience one needs, but they will get them one way or another.
Toddler as soon as Mom turns her back:
Licks the couch & sucks on wooden table leg
I guess infancy is just about establishing a fundamental texture profile to use in adulthood. A standardised collection of mouthfeels. PANTONGUE™️
I was thinking exactly this while reading the meme. Our first experiences with the world are touching things and then putting them in our mouths. We build a cognitive database of touch- and taste-based sensory data from day one. Of course that’s going to inform our thoughts later on!
I’m just realizing from your comment that the pan- in PANTONE is the same as the pan- in pansexual.
False. I have no idea what licking lava would feel like.
Ever eaten Hot Pockets?
Hotdogs/brats with cheese in them are in the same category.
“Is your Hot Pocket cold in the middle?”
“It’s frozen, but it can be served boiling-lava hot.”
Pain. Your face may also feel some, as well.
Ok, fair enough.
Not yet. Wanna try together?
Hi, my name’s Lava
If it weren’t for the skin incinerating temperature, it’d probably feel like softened caramel
I assume it works best when you see the things in front of you at least once, rather than just images, and I’ve never seen lava in real life
A healthy anus can tell the difference between solids, liquids, and gasses.
just because it can tell the difference doesn’t mean you can necessarily do anything with that information. sometimes that train, she comes quickly.
Ain’t no stopping that train.
Everybody poops
Pretty much every asshole I know can do that
You test them? Your parties must be unsettling for new friends!
That’s due to the anal sampling reflex
My fingers also know.
As does my pp.It’s the brain.
The same damaged brain that can’t tell how it will feel doing something it enjoys.
That a fuck.There’s an indie game that just came out called Dragon Detective, where investigation is about using the five senses, plus the sixth sense of magic.
You would think that Taste would be a fringe-use sense that barely comes up, but no, this dragon really does lick the whole crime scene to judge the makeup of an object.
“S-Stop! Please stop licking the walls!!”
My tongue didn’t account for the taste when it longed for the anus last night.
There’s no accounting for taste, famously
Your ear knows how it will feel too, and your pinky toe, and your nose…
… and my penis?
Easy there, Vance
And my ass
I looked at a lint roller and I’m pretty positive I have no clue what licking that would be like
Extra sticky postage stamp.
Lightly used lint roller and wet tongue? Fuzzy and tacky but slippery. Unless you dry out your tongue first, then it’ll just stick in a weird and unsatisfying way.
There’s a satisfying way to lick a lint roller and you know this how?
Yeah but that’s more theory vs practice.
I dunno…
looks at pile of discarded lint rollers covered in saliva
Damn now I’m hungry.
Only one way to find out. Do it… For science!
The silicone type of lint roller would probably feel like an unusually firm silicone dildo and the sticky tape type would probably feel slippery like postage stamp and taste with that sickly sweet chemical adhesive taste
The table leg feels like kiki and the football feels like bouba. Easy
Isn’t this the same for hands?
I’ve seen this before, but I have to wonder: has anyone actually tested it? Like sure, you can imagine what licking asphalt would feel like, but have you ever just done it to make sure your imagination is right?
Most definitely as a baby or toddler, yes you have. And if it was not asphalt it was similar stuff like walls and such.
As soon as one has enough data and a brain developed enough one absolutely can tell the feel and taste of stuff even if not tested.
Bonus points if your a parent. Toddlers WILL force stuff in your mouth and you WILL have the chance to test the theories.
Asphalt tastes like gummy bears for a second.
Oh, my stars! Does that mean… Oh, goodness 🫢
Now do the vacuum compartment of my Roomba. Mmmmmmm …
